AIM

MSN

Website URL

ICQ

Yahoo

Jabber

Skype

Location

Interests

It's a grey area.
There is no formal rules that do not allow attacking a player, shooting and running. Because they are based on initial core design elements built around instanced battles.
But these core design elements cause such frustrations and problems that are not good for the long term of the game.
Before the release the decision must be made about those core systems and here are the options.
Current ruleset is based on these ideologies
I want to attack someone and people far away must not enter = "i must be able to sink you solo if i want to"
I want to be able to sink a 1st rate in a cutter (old heated topic).
I want to be able to run away if i want to (because my ship is fast)
I do not want a player from far to join my battle, because its mine.
If the goals is to increase pvp these ideologies can be rethought or abandoned as they dont increase an amount of pvp.
Problem 1 - inability to help your own.
The common message from rookies in national chats are well known - "I got attacked near XXX port - please help if you can" or "I see enemy ships - lets tag them - come help"…
Usual answer in chat - silence and "tough luck" - as you CANT. I think its time to accept the fact that distance based ROE is bad and is reducing pvp and only helps solo hunters (which based on data are a huge minority).
This is a problem because we know that pvp assists has 100% of correlation with retention. If you dont participate in group activities you drop from the game 10x faster.
Problem 1.1 part of lack of group pvp
There is actually not enough ganking (hold on and bear with me). For accounts created in December: Only 5% of players have pvp assists and only 1% of players have more than 10 pvp assists.
Again the problem because assist increase retention
Problem 2 Speed
Fast ship controls the OW pvp, and heavy battle ready ships do not have anything to counter against the gank even if they outnumber enemies in guns.
Problem 3 combat ready ship balance - described by OP in the post.
When line ship is fighting 3 fast frigates to win the lineship must not make a single mistake
When 3 fast frigates fight the lineship they can always run away if they make a mistake
So why dont we just rework those ideologies from scratch and focus them on the main goal - increase pvp and group pvp per hour for all (not only solo hunter in a speed fitted frigate).
Examples of clear solutions solving the problems and increasing meaningful pvp on the WAR server
This is a war server. Why escape options? Whats the point? If you attacked - fight!
Patrol rules for the whole world. Circle of death.
If you are ready to attack someone - be ready to die and fight to the end.
Sure some will cry about it - tough luck like they say in national chats - but it will keep only meaningful pvp.
Battle is always open for the weaker side
This is a war server - this is a pvp game with the goal to increase amount of pvp for all. There is no point to close the battle for the weaker side. Let them escalate. This becomes the goal.
Then you can come to help your own, and know someone will come to help.
Then you can build more friendships and get assists
Then you will stumble to more battles and will have more pvp kills per hour.
Basically.
When improving ROE - Remove all features from ROE that reduce pvp per hour. Add features that grow the pvp per hour.
Ignore the cries like "but tumbado is 3000km away".
Check only one parameter when determining the outcome of changes - number of PVP battles per hour and number of assists.
Ignore the rest.
This will also solve the problem described in the post (with the move to weight systems because with proper broadside weight - prince will die in 1 min).
PS
Current number for War server for accounts created in December
1 pvp kill every 8 hours in game per pvp engaged player.
1 pvp kill every 24 hours in game total for the server

Hello Captains and Admin,
I'll start off saying that between my 2 characters I have about 2000 hours and about 2 years in the game. I had never played a multiplayer game before. I remember when I first got it, the STEEP learning curve. Absolutely NO idea what to do. The GREAT players that helped me and yes the DREADED seal clubbers. HAHAHAHA, I look back at those times and wonder why I stuck with it. I stuck with it because I love the sea and ships. No other game has given me the feeling of really being at sea and really sailing. The drop dead gorgeous graphics, turning off my other monitors and darkening my room. The audio, putting on my headphones and turning up the volume. The pure thrill of being hunted, I play as a merchant captain. Sighting another ship on the horizon. Friend or foe? ENEMY! and the chase is on. The TAG and now I begin to sweat. I'm not armed because it would slow me down. Sometimes I get away and sometimes I don't. Then the sights and sounds of battle, I can almost smell the gunpowder.
I was reading a bit on the forums this morning and came across "Game Reviews on Steam" by Bach. It made me think hard about the recurring problem of player retention. Noobs as well as seasoned PVPers wanting a bit of fun. I think I have an answer but have no idea how it would be made to work.
We have 2 servers. One PVP and the other PVE. Now what if all new players spawn on the PVE server where we don't need green zones. There they do the tutorial, meet some of the players and get to know the game.
I'll admit that a lot of noobs bring the seal clubbing on themselves because they won't listen to their in game elders and end up being easy prey for people wanting a good fight. Then there are the jack asses who don't want to pick on someone their own size and they are the true rotten seal clubbers. But most captains just want to get out, find some PVP and have some fun.
The PVP server should be ruthless and hard core for PVPers. The PVE server should be there to accommodate those that want that play style and also to train Noobs. But often times it is a drain on the Devs because of low numbers. I cannot see a realistic way to fully integrate everyone on one server. PVPers need to hunt and find some prey to fight. PVErs Need to be able to do their thing without getting hassled. Noobs need to be able to learn without getting clubbed into leaving the game, they don't really know what they want yet. Now what if you could jump between the two servers and use them both to their greatest potential and solve all three problems? It just might lead to greater player retention and better game reviews.
I have the game map up on one of my other monitors and have been contemplating it. I see 3 places where portholes between servers could be placed. Middle of the Gulf of Mexico, middle of the Caribbean and north of the Bahamas between America and Kidd's Island. In each of these spots you place a new island with a light house and a green zone that extends to the edge of viability. No port, just a dock or two and you cannot have goods in your hold, only that which is necessary to fight your ship should you be attacked entering or leaving the green zone. Let us say that you are a dyed in the wool PVPer on the PVP server and want to go to the PVE server to help train and mentor some Noobs. You sail to one of these islands and drop sail. Up comes a screen that lets you switch servers painlessly. Upon popping out in the PVE server and leaving the green zone you can either sail where you wish or TP to any capital. To make this work well tagging other players needs to be added to the PVE server, the tagged player must accept or the battle instance closes and they go on their way and the green zones on the PVP server eliminated except around the capital proper. Of course it works the other way and a Noob or someone that normally plays PVE wants to go to the PVP server and stick their toe in the hot waters of battle can do so. It would encourage mingling and better usage of the two servers. Better training of the Noobs. Better yet, for the dedicated PVPer, three easy to find and get to HOT spots where they can go prowl for prey and hopefully find some good quick fights. All at little cost to anyone. Hopefully we all have much more to do to enjoy this game and retain players.
Noobs win. PVPers win. PVErs win. Devs win. Game wins. I win, yes I'm selfish.
Another SHAMELESS plug, Devs (DOG! Let go of my pant leg!) open the Pacific so I don't have to sail around the edge of the map. (DOG!!! I said let go!!) I'm going to courts marshal that drat dog one of these days.
Please discuss and poke all the holes in it you want. I want this game to succeed.
Fair sailing and the best day or night to all.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about the experience of the newly added player to OW, and make a few suggestions for improving this critical time in a player's Naval Career:
Promotion Progression. Maybe this is just because I'm that casual of a player, but "progressing" from Ensign to Midshipman doesn't really feel like a promotion. 10 more crew to control doesn't expand your ship options at all, and doesn't really help much (except capturing a Privateer, which you can't fully crew). Even a Jr. Lieutenant can't staff a Brig. Suggestion to fix this issue: Combine Midshipman/Ensign (these ranks are backwards anyways), set the XP needed to advance to, say, 300. Hopefully some new ship(s) will be added that will be perfect for the Jr. Lieutenant to be able to fully staff one and have a progressive step up from Midshipman. Difficulty in Initiating Boarding. I'm still trying to figure out how to Board without either playing the "Stick the AI in irons" game I mentioned above, or spending half an hour chaining the crap out of their sails. Suggestion to fix this issue: I'm really not sure. Perhaps boarding can be a function of speed differential between the two vessels - if they're nearly stationary with each other because they have matched speed, and close enough, perhaps this enables the Boarding option? I'd be open to suggestions here. AI Surrender/Flee. The AI fights to the death, every time. Unarmed ships turn into you and act like they're trying to obtain a firing position. Suggestion to fix this issue: The AI needs to be more intelligent about surrendering. The first time I fire into or grape an unarmed ship, if the distance is closing, that flag should come flying down. After 6 minutes of having not received any damage, the AI should leave the battle. Maps/Navigation. I'm used to using Google Maps to navigate now after spending as much time in the OW as I have, but a very common item I see in chat is people lamenting the lack of some sort of navigational aid. I saw someone the other day saying "I'm in Plymouth, and I have no idea where I am, can anyone help me?" Suggestion to fix this issue: This might just be a "You are Here" marked picture of the game world available when in port (same image port to port, with a pin marking your current port's location). Sometimes the new player starts out in a town that isn't really on Google Maps, and this can lead to a lot of confusion. I just blew a bunch of money on a Brig, and I can only put 50 people on it!?!?!? Suggestion to fix this issue: Need to indicate somehow that purchasing a certain ship at your current rank will not allow you to staff it fully. Use a warning dialogue or other mechanic. Carefully look at AI jump-ins for low level fights. When a player in their Lynx has finally found a nice juicy trader brig, having an enemy fleet jump in to make them run is extremely frustrating.
More to come. I welcome any additional thoughts or challenges people faced when first entering OW to use to further flesh out this topic.
There is not enough to do. Initially, we had the Virgin Islands Turkey Shoot, with a massive spawn set up to allow quick levelling. Without that, in a Lynx, you're very limited in what you can do. Attacking an AI Lynx or Cutter feels like suicide with the way the AI is able to juke back and forth. I spend most of my time trying to re-find the aim/range, while they spend most of their time juking back and forth, hammering me from both broadsides. This is followed by generally having to make ones way back to a port because your ship is barely able to hold itself together after one of these encounters. Attacking a Trader Snow is suicide as they pound you with those carronades. That really just leaves you to seeking out Trader Brigs at a slow rate, hour after hour, getting 3-6xp per 15 minute battles (though the gold is good). Of course, you could say "learn to play", however, we're talking about a player relatively new the game who is now attempting Open World. Suggestion to fix this issue: Create a plethora of Trader Lynx and Trader Cutters. Give us more than a single ship type that we can capture (I personally don't know how to capture an enemy Lynx in the starter Lynx without going to the bottom) and make them plentiful enough that you can at least feel like you have targets to hit, and you're making progress. You can make the Gold reward for taking these two new ship types far lower - the key is giving the Basic Lynx some prey that a new person can use to learn and experiment on, while getting the carrot of making progress towards a better rank/ship. Reduce the amount of crew on Traders to a more historical level(this is now complete, thank you Devs!), making their gun reloads and sail handling more sluggish and enabling the Basic Lynx to have a chance of capturing them without having to play the "make the AI get stuck in irons, park, and hammer with grape for 15 minutes" game. Feature added on June 16th, thank you Devs! Does this item work on this ship??? I know this will likely be for the future, but buying 1000gp cannon you think will go on your ship and they don't.....very disappointing. Suggestion to fix this issue: Some sort of obvious marker that will indicate whether an item, be it in loot, shop, warehouse, or hold, will work on your current ship. "Class" sorting and easy display by deck (as well as in the ship description) added. Thanks Devs!